A home away from home.
I tried to write the title in Spanish, but not quite there yet.


Here is that mirror I was talking about. Que bonita, si?


So I put pictures all around the white paper-thin cement walls and am quite amazed by how this semi-smelly, chilly bland room became my sanctuary. I bought a soft pillow and figured out that a hard bed is a perfect place to do yoga on. So much for trying to find a yoga mat. Now if only I could find some tapones para los oidos (ear plugs) my room here would be complete. All night I hear dogs barking and whining right on the other side of the wall behind my bed. I now understand how it's possible to shoot a dog with a shotgun. I can't lie. I have to wear an eyemask becaue although the window behind my bed is made of some strange glass that inhibits people from seeing through it, it doesn't block out the light. And the hat is the best attempt to block out the dogs. los perros de infierno. The other night I was dreaming that I was trapped in a basement and there were german sheperds gaurding the exits. I contribute this to the incessant barking. Not only do they keep me from falling asleep, they have made their way into my dreams. Que malo.




Spanish is a very neat language and my classes are pretty rigorous. I wake up at 6:30, actually more like 7:10 do to the uncontrollable urge to snooze my way to breakfast. Breakfast is at 7:15, and I lucked out because my homestay woman is a great cook, apparently one of the best. Yesterday for breakfast I had blueberry pancakes with a chocolate chip smiley faces on top, real maple syrup and a banana on the side. que rico. today for lunch i had fried califlower, and for fried califlower, it was prepared quite nicely. I claimed to be a vegetarian, I remember the unidentifiable meat they served me in Costa Rica and wasn't really willing to take that chance again. Apparently being vegetarian is an odd concept here, muy extrano, I was told. Oh well, i swear they were eating the meat from pigs feet yesterday. I'm probably wrong, though.

Kind of got on a tangent there, back to my classes. I also lucked out on the teacher, I have the best one, i've been told. Her name is Lucky,(ironic?). I've already made about 100 flash cards of irregular verbs. I think my mission of learning Spanish here may be successful, unlike that in Salamanca. Un poco mas fiestas en Espana. Also, the school has daily activities. On monday I learned about Mayan philosophy (in spanish), and yesterday we had salsa dancing lessons. I'm planning on becoming quite a stud on the dance floor. they offer group lessons everyday and I can buy a pack of 5 private lessons to Q260, which is less than $35. Tomorrow we're visiting a ceramics factory and get to try to throw pots. Throwing pots (on the wheel, not against the wall) is a specialty of mine from highschool, so I can't wait. This weekend we're climbing to see an active volcano, one of the top 10 most dangerous in the world. Don't worry though, mom, we're not actually climbing the active volcano, we're climbing a less active one a couple kilometers away. Apparently there's a nice view point. They say don't bring any important documents, and bring your camera, even though it might get stolen. Very reassuring.

Well beside dreams of being trapped in basements with dogs surrounding me, I take trips back home everynight, so you're all still very close to me.

Introduction to Guatemala

You couldn´t imagine my relief to see Victor standing outside holding up the professional 'dos lunas' sign. I say professional because it was an actual print out on a nice white piece of plastic and a handle so he could hold it up above the crowd of taxi drivers and other hotel pickup services. I don't know why I was expecting him to be standing there wearing all black with a ripped out piece of notebook paper with '2 lunas' written on it with black marker. I approached him, weary to give him any information first, and he immediately said 'Amy(I can't find the question mark key), i am beector'. perfecto.

I was a little nervous on the plane, i can't lie. I decided that it'd be a good idea to reread the consular information about Guatemala that I found and printed from the government website a few weeks ago. I skimmed through it before, thinking 'oh, I'm sure this is all very rare, no problems'. Yet on the plane, at night, flying into Guatemala city and not completely trusting the pick·up service, I felt a little differently about the information. i was reading sentences like 'the number of violent crimes reported by foreigners has increased in recent years... incidents include, but are not limited to, assault, theft, armed robbery, carjacking, kidnapping, rape and murder' Not limited to, what else is there? (shift and dash makes a question mark) I kept reading 'Criminals generally operate in groups of 4 or more and are considerably confrontational and violent. There are five to six murders a day in Guatemala city and surrounding areas' It was at this point where I really started to question what I had gotten myself into. And it goes on 'The police force is young, inexperienced, and under·funded, and the judicial system is weak, overcrowded and inefficient. Criminals, armed with an impressive array of weapons, know that there is little chance they will be caught and punished for their crimes.' I was a little scared, to say the least. Yet, I held back the tears saying to myself, 'Amy, you're going to be a doctor, you can't cry in public.'
So I went to the bathroom.

But all was well. Victor was there and the hotel had free deep rock water, high speed internet and hot showers. What more could you ask for? The following day I took a first class bus to Quetzaltenango. It's supposed to be a four hour ride, although with some minor traffic and construction projects, the trip took just over six hours. But the scenery was great and the road side culture was quite impressive.

A woman, from the school I'll be going to, picked me up from the bus station and drove me to my homestay, located just across the street from the school. I have my own room located outside of the actual house. It's big enough to do yoga in (as soon as I can find a yoga mat, for the carpet doesn't look like it's been vacuumed in quite some time). The bed is big, which I was really excited about until I knocked the wind out of myself when I laid down on it. It's hard as a rock, and the pillows are armchair cushions in pillow cases. But really I can't complain because the supermercado sells soft pillows for about two dollars. The room has two decorations: a poster of the rocky mountains (a little ironic) and a three paneled mirror. The mirror is actually quite humorous. The middle panel is the mirror and the side two panels are illustrations of young blond girls. The one on the left is wearing a straw hat and holding two baby pigs; one dressed in a picnic table pattern dress and the other wearing overalls and a cowboy hat. The other girl, in the right panel, is washing a cockerspaniel in an old fashioned bathtub. I would love to find one of these for my room at home.

My homestay mother has two children; a sixteen year old girl and a 28 year old boy (Gabriel). About half an hour after I arrived, in the midst of unpacking, Gabriel knocks on my door and asks if I want to go with him and some other students to the xela futbol game. I speak too soon and jump all over the opportunity. I've never seen a professional futbol game. So not only did I watch the game, I sat in the rain for three hours before the game started in order to 'get good seats'. I brought my snow coat, figuring that it was water proof. But quite to my surprise, no it's not. By the start of the game, water was coming through my hood and dripping (as in water droplets) down the side of my face. I had on these great new pants that I bought from REI, which apparently have great capillary action because not only was the rear of the pants wet, but the entire backside was drenched, from tailbone to ankles. How exhilaratinging. Speaking of exhilarating, the fans were quite a spectacle. There were about fifteen boys with large drums who played the entire game. Before the game there were people throwing around bags full of newspaper scraps which were thrown as confetti as the team came out onto the field. Imagine pieces wet newspaper stuck to umbrellas, coats and dark black, greasy hair. Everytime the team scored firecrackers were thrown onto the field from the stands. Oh and I almost forgot the cheer. The drummers would drum and the fans would sing. I asked Gabriel what they were saying and it was something along the lines of 'we didn't come to see the keeper, because he's not really a keeper he's a bitch from the whorehouse'. He follows with 'it's a rhyme'. Xela (quetzaltenango´s nickname) won, 2 to 0.

Well I'm off to buy that pillow and some scotch tape so I can tape some of my pictures from home to the walls. School starts tomorrow at 8.

Amy leaves for Guatemala in the morning. Last night Amy and I reviewed her itinerary for the next 6 months in Latin America (Guatemala - Brazil - Equator and Peru). She collated little notebooks of information (including numbered attachments) for Don and me - so we won't worry. I was impressed. She's spent a lot of time researching and planning this trip. Her medical records and several months of medicine will accompany her. Rclare, a good friend, says not to worry - it will be the "adventure of a lifetime" and she'll be fine - and I am excited for her too, but I'm a creative genius with an overactive imagination who has always been able to take the "art of worry" to the next level, like most mom's do. Amy's a realist. She expects to have some things stolen and get an occasional bout of diarrhea. I'm worried that someone will cut off her feet to get those new hiking boots - or strangle her and rip off her arms to get that new backpack - or worse - that those Ladd bands will act up when she's on a tiny canoe on a river in the Amazon Jungle among tapirs, toucans, wild cats, monkeys, capybaras and boa constrictors - in the middle of that 16th day of her 823 mile Gecko "grassroots adventure" from Quito, Equator to Lima, Peru - and the only "doctor" around is a local shaman who claims to traverse the axis mundi and uses the knowledge from the spirit world and magical forces to treat her. http://www.geckosadventures.com/latin_america/trip_notes.asp?trip=2216

But I suppose I should "just chill" - She's very smart and has worked through many of those scenarios - plus recently attended the Krav Maga Academy of Warrior Spirit - and studied instinctive face-to-face combat techniques taught by the warrior spirits. Her body is a weapon - and she's traveling with mace. I can only hope.

Never a dull hair day,
Amy's mom